Sickness

Part Two

Gale met me afterwards at his cabin. "Hey Vaaaaal." he says smiling.

"Hey Gaaale?" I return, suspicious of his overly-joyous attitude.

We start walking towards the gate to our colony. We had already agreed that we were going to go in to see our mothers.

"So." he says, "I thought your chick fight earlier was really... something."

"Oh shut up!" I laugh and lightly punch his arm. "You're probably like every other guy. You LOVE a good chick fight. Am I right or am I right?"

"Well that was one of the best I've seen. Her really beat her."

I shrugged. "She pissed me off."

"You didn't tackle her until she said something about me."

Oh no. I felt my cheeks get red. Humiliation? Was this humiliation? Why was I letting myself get embarrassed. What was I embarrassed about?

"Well you're my best friend. I didn't want you getting mixed up with her."

Way to pull something out of your ass Vala.

He laughs and pokes me. "Does Vala have a crush on Gale?"

I lightly push him, "NO Vala does not."

I almost immediately regret saying it the way I did. I thought I saw a flicker of sadness on his face. Or maybe it wasn't sadness. Maybe disappointment.

We walk to the front gates silently and wait in line to have our fingers pricked. Before anyone goes into or out of the colony, they have to have a blood test. The government doesn't want any infected people being exposed to a colony of healthy citizens.

Gale and I go through the process, and exit through the small doorway sized cement gate opened strictly for the entrance and exit of military personnel. It slides open horizontally with loud rumbling noise against the cement ground.

For the protection of all healthy citizens, the door takes you directly through a mile-long underground passage leading to the colony. It's dark and damp with few lights. It doesn't bother anyone though. Unless they go out. You do NOT want to be stuck in a small, dark area with a loose infected citizen.

"Do you want to go see our mothers first?" Gale asks me.

I nod, "Of course."

Gale and I didn't have fathers. Well of course we did, but we had lost them. Gale's father had died in combat and mine was infected. It was not something Gale and I talked about often. Our fathers were killed a week and a half apart. Gale and I were forced to endure the same heartbreak at the same time, during a crucial time in our training. My dad was who determined me in being a soldier. He was the one who made me crave the fight. He was an amazing soldier and I wanted to be one too. My mother, however, did not approve. She wanted me to give it all up and become a mother like most girls my age. But that was not the life I was meant to pursue.

I was seven when this country went to pieces. My family and I were lucky to survive. And we only did because my father and a close friend of his (Gale's dad) were both on leave from the military. Our families survived the initial bombings and breakouts of the disease. As a child, I thought we were lucky. However, after ten years came and went, I had grown wiser. And I knew that maybe we weren't as lucky as we had thought we were. Our families have just become more and more broken as the years go on.

My mother told me that when I was born, there were teenagers getting pregnant all over the place. I remember her ranting in our old house about my cousin Bridget being irresponsible for getting pregnant at such a young age. And about how my aunt Kelly should have kept a tighter leash on her. That memory is etched into my brain, and the conversation replays every time my mother encourages me to have a baby so I wouldn't have to be a soldier. Things have changed. There is a need for human beings more than ever before. And it will take many years before the population is satisfiable. Sure, other countries are well off for people. But they won't even glance at America and their dire need to repopulate this continent, or get who is left off of it. So we're left to our own devices. We have to populate populate populate. The older people are dying off faster than new ones are being born. Women are getting too old to have children, and the government is looking to young girls. So they have the Lottery. If by the time you are 15, you have not had a child or become pregnant, you go into the drawing. Between the ages of 15 and 20, you are most eligable to be chosen. If you are chosen, you are sent to the Soldier Community to learn how to fight. What we're fighting? We don't know. You don't get to know until they take you outside of these walls. Ten new recruits are drawn from the Lottery a month and brought the community against their will.

In other words. You are given an ultimatum. Have a child, or become a soldier and risk your life. Many girls become pregnant to avoid it. Because when you're a fourteen year old girl, playing house for the rest of your life seems a whole lot better than risking it.

It was a sickening sight to see twelve and thirteen year old girls who were practically still children themselves walking around with big bellies. Their innocence being robbed from them in an effort to do what is right. The entire scene made me nauseous. That mothers would encourage that among their daughters, and that those girls would risk a good life for their child to save their own skin. Knowing that that child would someday have the same ultimatum shoved down their throat.

All you could do otherwise, was go to the gathering and pray to God that your name wasn't on that list. At least that's what most people pray for. Except me. I was different. Gale and I prayed that we WOULD be on that list.

And we were.

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Chapter Two rewritten as of 8/31/2014